The Spectator and the Muses

Acquainted #3 – Idle Hands, Ideal Hands

“My hands itch. I must move them. They itch because they have life in them”. That was a guy’s claim for always having his hands doing something. He had no other choice. It was like the symptom of a disease he had gotten used to, giving the impression he even enjoyed it.

But no one else cherished his hands’ hyperactivity. Fidgeting things, cracking his knuckles, rubbing his hands, and snapping his fingers always annoyed someone around him because of the noises, or simply due to the non-stop repetition. He didn’t feel sorry, though — he had to move his hands or life would leak away from them.

Sometimes he tried to dissimulate by using pen and paper. He would jot down nonsense. Other times he would scribble on the page. The doodles became drawings that looked almost as live portraits of animals and plants, only if he spent enough time scrabbling.

One day he ran out of ink, with still lots of time to spare, and quite some people around — none whom could lend him another pen or a pencil. He really didn’t want to be a noisy disturbance again, so he decided to use the paper. He couldn’t let life escape aimlessly from his idle hands. He folded the page once, then twice, and repeated until he lost count. The people around got curious about his spontaneous handicraft and gathered to see it closer. He had created a dove.

“Watch out. It’s about to fly”. He rubbed his hands together after he finished.Everybody burst in laughter, then stopped suddenly. The dove had gone out the window with a gust of the breeze.